Thursday, November 01, 2012

Religion Of Peace?

As I sat quietly in an airport lounge, I noticed CNN running on the monitors as is typical. What was also typical is that the news feed was about yet another minor skirmish in some far-flung region of the world most of the people around me have never heard about.

Two ladies starting talking about how sad it was and one of them went so far as to say she felt sorry for such 'religious persecution'. She didn't understand why such a peaceful religion was always having these issues. Such ignorance voiced with such apparent empathy naturally made my eyebrows wrinkle. It is always fascinating to me how little knowledge the majority has of the world they are so quick to form opinions about.

It takes very little research (CIA World Book, State Department, Google) to determine that on average in the last 6 years there are 23 major skirmishes at any given time going on around the world. Of those, 21 have a Muslim root. The others are primarily drug-related.

We all know how much everyone, pretty much everywhere likes to tout and condemn all the atrocities of the Catholic church, myself included. But there is something different about good old fashioned greed and evil then a religion that presumes any who don't subscribe should be actively persecuted unto death.

China has long been known as one of the most religiously closed societies in the world. They have persecuted and driven out religions of all types. However, in the last several years they have reached out to many religious leaders with a plea to please send missionaries into their country. The reason for this change of heart is that they started to see Muslim influence and while they can tolerate and coexist with virtually every other religion, there is simply no coexistence with the Muslim faith.

As says the Quran

If the hypocrites, and those in whose hearts is a disease, and those who spread false news among the people in Al¬Madinah, stop not, We shall certainly let you overpower them; then they will not be able to stay in it as your neighbours but a little while. Accursed, they shall be seized wherever found and killed with a (terrible) slaughter.
- Surah Al-Ahzab verse 60 and 61

There are of course, several other examples of the complete intolerance espoused in any study of the Quran, this one was just blindingly appropriate to this discussion.

I will defend vehemently the desire for all to choose their own faith, and live their own culture. But if part of your foundational belief is that the rest of us don't have rights because we don't believe as you do, and in fact should be actively persecuted simply for disagreement, then you are like a viper in the nest and no one else is safe. If one of the most anti-religious countries in the world can figure this out, why are so many Americans so blatantly ignorant?